COCKNEY Rebel mainstay Steve Harley plays the O2 Academy Bournemouth on November 29 and talks exclusively to the Daily Echo Magazine on Saturday. To give a flavour of his first flush of fame we turned to a blog on teenagerockopera.wordpress.com written by a (nameless) music fan who grew up going to gigs in Hampshire and Dorset in the 1970s, including this account of the aftermath of a Cockney Rebel gig at Bournemouth’s Winter Gardens on March 16, 1975 ...

"This gig was – I’m pretty certain – my first at the Winter Gardens and I went to it with my friends Neville Judd, Sarah and someone else whose name I can’t recall.

"This was the all-new incarnation of Cockney Rebel – now billed as Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel – drummer Stuart Elliott the only surviving member from the 1974 shows.

"Their renditions of both Best Years of Our Lives and Sebastian have remained with me all these years, the crowd singing and swaying along in unison.     

"The support act for the night were Sailor, who had enjoyed a minor hit single the year previous with Traffic Jam and who would enjoy massive success at the end of 1975 (and into 1976) with a pair of very infectious Top 10 smashes, Glass of Champagne and Girls Girls Girls.

"My friend Neville Judd had a habit of wanting to meet all the bands and artists he went and saw."He would either loiter by the stage door before the shows, blag his way into the soundchecks, or stalk the band whenever they left the auditorium.

"By the time the four of us had got out of the Winter Gardens crowd, the band had already left, but Neville found out from a roadie where in Bournemouth they were staying for the night.

"The Roundhouse Hotel was quite the trek from the seafront but we walked there nonetheless.

"Neville casually strolled into the hotel foyer, managed to stumble across Rebel’s tour manager and said we all wanted to meet the band and get their autographs.

"The tour manager told us we might have a bit of a wait while they all cooled down following the show.

"Neville told him we didn’t mind waiting, and that we would be outside near the hotel’s entrance.

"Eventually the group came out (albeit piecemeal) most of them somewhat amazed that the four of us had hung around for so long.    

"We told them they’d done a great show and got their autographs, each on a page of a notebook Neville always (naturally) carried with him for such eventualities.

"Harley himself was a little stand-off-ish, but the other guys in the band – especially George Ford – were lovely to us, asking where we’d come from and what other bands we liked.

"It was a great night though, a great gig and my first meeting with anyone famous … this night, in 1975, I was most certainly in awe of meeting a few of my heroes, cementing my love for the music of Cockney Rebel.  

Cockney Rebel mainstay Steve Harley plays the O2 Academy Bournemouth on November 29 and talks exclusively to the Daily Echo Magazine on Saturday, November 27.